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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194177">I will carry you, wherever I go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay'>Issay</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Resident (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Eventual Romance, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:33:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>AJ thinks back to the last time they scrubbed out together - middle of the night after a twelve-hour procedure, they were both exhausted and yet unwilling to part yet. He thinks back to the almost-kiss when they shared breath and space when Mina’s cheek was brushing his beard and her fingers ghosted touch on his chest. His heart squeezes painfully.<br/>“We need to trust Okafor to know when to duck bullets,” he says eventually, after a too-long pause. Kit seems to understand what he isn’t saying anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>AJ Austin &amp; Kit Voss, AJ Austin/Mina Okafor, Kit Voss &amp; Mina Okafor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I will carry you, wherever I go</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I strongly recommend listening to this while you read: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFvHeqMfsJQ">"Carry You" by Tim Minchin</a> (yes, I'm serious, go and give it a listen).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He doesn’t fully understand how much Mina completes him until she’s gone. It was inevitable, AJ knows, she was always destined to get board certified (double certification in general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery - he’s so damn proud of her, he has no words to tell her) and move on to greater things. Sure, it was a thought he accepted only in the darkest hour of the night, the quiet one when the things one can’t say in daylight come out. To the outside world, the Raptor was convinced that his brilliant student would stay at Chastain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, I never thought she’d actually go through with it,” Kit comments quietly when they’re preparing for their respective shifts in the surgery locker room one day after Mina’s departure. “Doctors Without Borders seem too extreme for her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okafor wants to give back,” AJ rumbles, not looking up from tying his shoes. “It was either that or going back to Africa without an international organization standing behind her. She’s safer with them.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“I understand it but I worry about her. Mina is fearless.” Kit puts her hand on AJ’s shoulder and squeezes lightly. He appreciates the unspoken comfort she communicates this way, he really does. “Like you. She’s fearless in a way that makes me afraid for her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Me too</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he wants to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It scares me and I wish she had never gone, I wish I could have stopped her but she wants this too much, she needs the penance for the deaths of her sisters and there was nothing I could have told her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>AJ thinks back to the last time they scrubbed out together - middle of the night after a twelve-hour procedure, they were both exhausted and yet unwilling to part yet. He thinks back to the almost-kiss when they shared breath and space when Mina’s cheek was brushing his beard and her fingers ghosted touch on his chest. His heart squeezes painfully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We need to trust Okafor to know when to duck bullets,” he says eventually, after a too-long pause. Kit seems to understand what he isn’t saying anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: nicolette.nevin@chastain.med.us</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To: mina.okafor@chastain.med.us </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Subject: Updates!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dear Mina,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I don’t think I’ll ever get over the weirdness of writing you emails. I hope this one finds you well, and that you’ll manage to read it reasonably soon (though I understand internet access is spotty at best). Everyone sends their love and best wishes - doctor Voss said to remind you that you need to sleep from time to time, and Conrad hopes you haven’t been shot at yet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>We’re all doing quite well - Devon is still dating the same girl so it’s been 6 weeks already, Conrad and Irving have a bet running on how long before poor Pravesh does something to self-sabotage the entire thing. Personally, I’m not sure who to feel bad for: Devon because of the obvious, the girl because she clearly has no idea what she has gotten herself into, or Irving once Devon learns about the betting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The new class of interns has arrived and they’re exactly what you’d expect: cocky, self-absorbed, and convinced they’re starring in their own Grey’s Anatomy spin-off. I’m not even attempting to know what’s going on in their personal lives but Devon is pretty frustrated with how useless a lot of them are. Conrad isn’t really helping with all the fellowship-related gloating (yes, he is an attending now - no, he’s still not wearing the damn white coat, go figure). </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Raptor is back and with a vengeance. I’ve never appreciated how much your company had mellowed him before: these days we rarely get a day without Austin throwing stuff at the interns, yelling, being rude, or simply more obnoxious than before. He has also begun interviews for his new resident and trust me, it’s not going well. I’d risk saying it’s going catastrophically - there was already at least one nervous breakdown caused by his temper. Scrub nurses are playing rock, paper, scissors to pick who works his surgeries. I don’t know what you did to make him behave like a civilized human being but it’s sorely missed by the entire hospital staff.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As for me, I’m enjoying the peace. There is no evil consortium or a murdering oncologist to fight, and I find it to be a very pleasant change of pace. Though knowing our luck there soon will be something else happening - even more reasons to enjoy it while I can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I hope you’re staying safe, and that you’ll manage to write me back soon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Love,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nic</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s scaring people off, he knows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, AJ has always snapped at the staff but now it’s a little bit more mean spirited than it used to when he could feel Mina’s eyes on him, and when the beginning of a frown disappearing under her scrub cap told him when he went overboard. He doesn’t have that signal now, and the never-ending carousel of nurses in his OR is a stark reminder that Austin can be truly nasty when he wishes to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nic tries to talk to him about it, ever the advocate of her nursing brethren, but he shrugs her off. However, where Nic fails there usually Conrad follows, and AJ finds it much harder to get the stubborn resident - no, the stubborn internal medicine attending physician, he keeps forgetting - off his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve stopped enjoying my work,” he confesses eventually over a beer and some truly magnificent ribs. Conrad’s eyes are filled with sympathy and understanding, and Austin hates it. “My hands are still the best in the business, I am still a cardio god, but…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It stopped being fun,” Hawkins finishes and nods. “I get that, man, I really do. But you’ve really got to stop tormenting the nurses. Not their fault Mina has left. And if you don’t stop soon, they’re going to boycott your surgeries and then Bell will have kittens.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have enough words to convey how much I don’t care about Bell’s state of kittens.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Conrad’s entire posture changes - his muscles tense, his back is straighter, and the look on his face suggests Austin should brace himself for a verbal punch. So he does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She is out there, risking her life, away from everyone who loves her,” Hawkins says, his voice low and bordering on a growl. “Her only comfort is the thought of coming home, and I know this because I’ve been there, her only comfort is thinking that she will come home back to everyone she had left behind. And you not being here when she does? That’s just cruel. So you can either keep being cruel to her, or you can pull your shit together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“It was a little bit too harsh,” Nic says later when Conrad tells her about the conversation he’s had with AJ. “He has loved her for years. But you know, maybe harsh is exactly what he needs…”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As much as Austin doesn’t want to accept it, Hawkins’ words strike a chord. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His relationship with Mina has been defined at the very beginning of their partnership. People rarely have a chance to pinpoint the defining moments with a razor-sharp recall and accuracy, he knows, but he is blessed with it. He knows exactly when Mina accepted him as a part of her world - that day in the speeding ambulance when she told him about her sisters. Their relationship was built on pain: shared and understood. It was also the day AJ has decided to be the one who does not leave her - she has lost her father and sisters, and never made peace with the fact that her mother never was her mother, and he refuses to be yet another person she loses. That’s the foundation. That’s the defining moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Conrad’s words keep ringing in his head long into the night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: kit.voss@chastain.med.us</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>To: mina.okafor@chastain.med.us</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Subject: Greetings from Chastain!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dear doctor Okafor!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As promised during our brief video call, please find attached a PDF with most practical field techniques for broken pelvis stabilization - I have consulted doctor Hawkins on the possible resources that would be easy to find and use in the region you are in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I sincerely hope you will find this useful in your practice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I am also very happy to report that a certain cardiothoracic surgeon we both know has finally stopped terrorizing the nursing staff and has moved on to scaring the living daylight out of interns and residents. According to gossip, he is now trying to find your successor and finds all candidates sorely lacking in either skills, sense of humor, character traits, or even personal hygiene. Randolph is considering stealing some promising interns from either Chicago or Seattle in hopes they will appease the Raptor - however, I think we both know you are simply irreplaceable to him, and no student will ever measure up. My heart breaks for the poor fools who will try, though I expect it to be a great sport to watch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once again, please keep yourself safe and good luck to you in the honorable endeavor you’re pursuing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Best regards,</span>
</p>
<ol>
<li><span> V.</span></li>
</ol><p> </p><p>
  <span>AJ enjoys tormenting the interns and lower year residents. He believes a little bit of terror is good for the character - it puts steel in the spines of those who will make the cut. After all, if they can’t get over being afraid of the Raptor, they will never get over the fear that comes with cutting into a living body of someone’s parent, child, sibling. Those he breaks choose to go into milder, calmer specialties like dermatology, plastic surgery, or otolaryngology. Ones with lower stress - and lower stakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no,” Devon says on his first day of cardio rotation when he sees the name of the surgeon he’ll be stuck with for the next six weeks of his life. “No, no, nonononono.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chill out, Pravesh,” AJ barks with a little bit of laughter somewhere from behind the poor man. “I’m not going to eat you. Yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Devon survives his rotation with Austin breathing down his neck - his approach is correct, his technique acceptable, but he lacks the sort of passion Mina had. Still, Austin whips him into being a better, faster surgeon - Devon may not enjoy the process but he emerges improved. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next one is not so lucky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to be the best mentee you’ve ever had,” the young man announces with a cocky smile and extends a hand for Austin to shake. “Doctor Elijah Winkler, your new resident.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>AJ looks at him, at the hand - still extended in the air - and rolls his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can already tell you won’t be any better than mediocre,” he says with badly masked contempt in his voice. “But you are welcome to try.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winkler does, indeed, fail in a spectacular fashion. His bedside manner is even worse than AJ’s; he treats the nurses like he’s so much better than they are that the personnel soon simply stops doing more than required by the medical care - his charts start being a mess, he lags behind the paperwork so badly Austin benches him for two days. The ER docs refuse to page Winkler in cases when the patient is conscious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so Raptor does what Raptor does best - he torments and mocks, he’s merciless in the drive for perfection and in pointing out all the mistakes. He amps up the dramatics to 11. Winkler lasts three weeks before having a rather spectacular breakdown in the middle of a double lung transplant. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have to confess,” Kit says conversationally in the surgeon’s lounge the day after Elijah leaves the program to search his luck somewhere else, “I have perhaps enjoyed the show a little bit too much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>AJ hides a smile in his beard.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>From: august.jeremiah.austin@chastain.med.us</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To: mina.okafor@chastain.med.us</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Subject: Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okafor,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Our paper on different bypass modes has been published. Attached are the scans - a paper copy is waiting in my office, along with a bottle of Lagavulin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cats are missing you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Raptor</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes his dreams return to that moment just before Mina had left. The imperfect almost kiss, the intimate moment when he could smell the disinfectant on her skin, and under her incense-like perfume, and even deeper something uniquely Mina, the scent of her skin that reminded him of petrichor, of rich dark earth welcoming the first drops of rain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not now,” she said and there was nothing like pleading in her quiet voice, and yet it seemed like a plea. The warmth of her body mixed with his, the ghost of her touch on his chest, on her back. “When I return.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes in his dreams, she doesn’t plead and he dreams of the taste of her lips, of the velvet of her skin, and of the whispered confessions he wouldn’t have the courage to utter in reality. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He much prefers these dreams to the dark and scary ones in which she needs help and he can’t reach her in time. He wakes up from them gasping for breath and checks if perhaps his hands are dripping with the red of her blood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>AJ doesn’t believe in foresight, or precognition, or whatever mystical crap. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps he should.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Voss and Bell are waiting for him when he gets out of surgery, a simple procedure that didn’t take a lot of time but for some reason, Austin is irritated, like there’s a metaphorical splinter of wood lodged in his finger like there is something out of place he can’t correct. It takes him a second to notice that Kit looks like she’s been crying and that the lines on Bell’s face are tight with worry. Kit’s hands are trembling. She has steady, sure hands and now they’re shaking like leaves on the autumn wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He freezes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just tell me,” he manages, trying to prepare himself for whatever horrible news they are bringing him. But there is no amount of preparation he could do to make this any better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mina was in Benin, close to the border with Nigeria, when their camp was attacked,” Bell says, and Austin can feel his heart stop in his chest before starting to pound like he’s just run a marathon. “She, along with three other doctors, has been taken by unknown assailants, probably for ransom. That’s all the information we have now but my friend at Doctors Without Borders has promised to contact me as soon as…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Austin tunes him out when Kit’s fingers grab his hands, her hold tight and sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re going to bring her home,” she says, her accent thick and voice heavy with emotion. August forgets sometimes that Mina is her favorite student too, and his hands curl around hers. Perhaps Bell is still talking in the background, and perhaps not, it doesn’t matter. Austin breathes. In and out. In and out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he rasps out. “We’re going to get her back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some things, however, are easier said than done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The three of them, and Conrad who eventually ropes in his father and some general he befriended during the QuoVadis debacle, use every contact they have and pull every string. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“American government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists,” Bell says two days later, throwing his phone onto the table in the conference room they have taken over between surgeries and ER interventions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Mina is not an American citizen, which additionally complicates matters,” Conrad says, anger in his voice. Austin wishes he could be angry like Hawkins, he really does. Instead, all he feels is the choking fear of a man who stands to lose all that is dear to him. It’s a striking realization. It would be elating if it wasn’t so terrifying. “We need someone from Nigeria, someone with access.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I know just the person,” AJ rumbles before getting up and leaving the conference room behind, his phone clutched in his hand so tightly he’s not sure if the screen won’t crack. He thinks back to a year before when they were all gathered around a large TV, watching news reports from Seattle where a mass casualty shooting took place inside a hospital. Mina’s lips were tightly pressed together, and something in Austin’s chest hurt at the thought of the houses of healing being so cruelly, so inexcusably marred by hate and violence. The next day Mina brought to the office they had shared a stack of papers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mother’s contact information, just in case. HR has it too, but I wanted someone… someone else to have it,” she explained, handing him a small card. “Now, I want to put you as my medical proxy. I have a living will advance directive, whatever you want to call it, so it won’t be a problem, just to sign some releases if something happens…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do it for you,” he says, his voice heavy with promise. “But I’d like to ask you to do it for me, in return.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stunned, she nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps doctor Okeke’s contact information both in his phone and on the card in his wallet. In a way, he treats Mina’s request more seriously than he does his own emergency directives but that’s just the way the Raptor operates. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Austin locks the door to his office (Mina’s spare clothes are still in the closet, so are her books and her favorite blanket. They’ve shared the space and if he has his way, they will continue to do so - she doesn’t know it yet but there is a spot in his department waiting for her safe return), takes his usual seat - facing the empty armchair Mina should be curled up in - and pick’s Mina’s mother’s number.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It takes another three days. Excruciatingly long three days that Austin spends in the OR, forcing himself to focus on the fragile muscle and delicate veins instead of on the agonizing wait. Three days when he tries very hard not to think about what could be happening to Mina, what horrible circumstances she had found herself in. Voss is in a similar kind of daze - they meet early in the morning in the locker room, and then they leave the hospital together late in the evening. It doesn’t escape Austin’s attention that more often than not Bell is somewhere on hand, hovering without crowding and that Voss gets into his car each evening. AJ doesn’t judge. He doesn’t feel like he has the right to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The phone finally rings in the middle of the night. AJ feels the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he answers after a second needed to shake off sleep out of his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mina has been released and is already on a plane to the States,” Josephine informs him curtly. “My assistant is sending you details via email. Please relay to my daughter my best wishes and that I hope her hands were not damaged in the ordeal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And screw you too,” Austin murmurs after the woman has disconnected the call. But his words lack malice. He needs a moment to gather himself together, to wrap the sudden hope and joy around the pain he has been feeling for the longest couple of days in his entire life. Mina is safe. Mina is coming home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can breathe again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She blinks, trying to chase the sleepiness away. The pain meds that made the journey possible are making her head feel like it’s stuffed with cotton, and succumbing to sleep seems extremely tempting but Mina heard the flight crew saying they’ll be landing soon, and she wants to be conscious when this happens. A quick glance around tells her that the other two doctors who have been taken with her and are now transported back to the US have no such need and are sleeping peacefully. She sighs and focuses on the thoughts she has been trying to keep at bay for the months she has spent in Africa and which are now her only way to stay awake. She thinks back to the moment just before boards when she and Voss were catching up on charting and surgery notes, and to a conversation about the future plans and complicated life choices.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Voss who suggested doing some overseas work - Voss, her mentor, and more of a mother than Mina’s actual mother - when Mina confessed to not knowing what to do after her certification.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe that sometimes you need to go far away in order to fully appreciate going back home,” Voss said with that warm smile of hers and too much understanding in her eyes. “And having some experience with loving difficult men I’d also risk saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s… Yes. Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have to tell you it won’t be easy.” Kit looked at her seriously. “You’re a woman in a male-dominated work environment, there will always be talk behind your back. About favoritism, and career advancement earned through bed, and about inappropriate power balance in a relationship started with one’s mentor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re speaking from experience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I do. Be sure that you’re ready for it, and be certain it’s worth it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing is - there was never a shadow of a doubt in Mina’s mind that it will be worth it. Austin is the man who walked miles through a snowstorm only because she needed him. He has accepted her pain and her darkness and was there for her to hold on wherever she needed it. He was there - and she has run away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mina carefully moves on the stretcher she’s secured to and winces when the broken ribs protest violently against this kind of movement. But she has no reason to complain: she got kidnapped and survived it with just a couple of broken ribs, some bruising, a possible torn ligament in her left leg, and a couple of deep scrapes on her back. It could have been worse. Much worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Throughout the captivity, Mina held on to the thought that help will come because Austin will move mountains to find her. This kind of faith in one man should terrify her but for some reason, it does not. Mina recognizes it as a sign that she is ready to get back on the path she has strayed from by leaving Chastain - just in time for the plane to land.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows he won’t be there on the airport: Nic is the one who holds her hand throughout the ambulance ride to Chastain; Nic who is in tears (“you’re basically my sister, the only one I have left,” she repeats over and over, and Mina feels the strange need to reassure her), and then it’s misty-eyed Voss in the ambulance bay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am fine,” she says at least a hundred times before being admitted, blood is drawn, IV fluids sipping into her veins, a CT scan, and some X-rays were done. “Really, nothing horrible happened, I am fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her ribs get wrapped, painkillers and anti-inflammatories along with wide-range antibiotics are administered via IV, possibly torn ligament turns out to be just sprained so her left leg is placed in a soft brace and propped up on some pillows. Nic is almost a constant presence, Voss eventually leaves for emergency surgery with Bell, Conrad - her kindred spirit who knows trauma, and knows how people like them deal with it which makes the visit short and sweet - and Pravesh drop by with cookies and coffee, and other people flow in and out of the room. After a couple of hours, Mina has the impression that she received well-wishes from nearly every member of the hospital staff. She drifts off at some point, exhausted and jetlagged. When she wakes, the room is half-dark because someone thoughtfully pulled down the blinds, later afternoon glow slipping in under them. Mina wakes to see Austin sitting in the armchair pulled up to stand next to her bed, watching her sleep like it’s the most precious sight to him in the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wordlessly, afraid to break whatever charm they’re both under, Mina reaches for his hand. He wraps his both giant, gentle paws - hands of a skilled surgeon, hands that are priceless and that make miracles happen - around her fingers and bends his head down to press a reverent kiss, soft beard hair tickling the skin on the top of Mina’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s an exchange, things unsaid but understood, things that do not need saying aloud in order to be true. AJ may be the man of many expressions, dramatic sounds, and grand gestures - but Mina is not. She puts this silence above an outpouring of words, and the fact that they share it is worth more than any confession; it’s a confession in its own way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s not sure how long they stay like this (his hands are warm, and somewhere along the way their fingers tangled) but eventually, the sounds outside tell her it’s almost time for evening rounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re releasing you,” AJ tells her, a smile disappearing in his beard. “I’ll be back after the rounds to take you home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason - and Mina gladly will say later it was because of the painkillers clouding her mind - it hasn’t dawned on her that “home” meant his apartment. Which of course it did, after all, Mina has vacated her flat before leaving, furniture and most of her personal things packed neatly and put in long term storage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But when Austin helps her hobble into his place, and further into the guest bedroom (with infinite patience and gentleness, making sure she’s not putting too much strain on the bad leg), Mina realizes that her quilt and pillows are on the bed. That the stack of books is definitely hers, and so is the armchair along with matching footrest placed by the window. When Mina turns to him to ask about it, AJ simply smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nic thought you’d feel better with some of your things, Okafor. There are some clothes in the wardrobe, and toiletries in the bathroom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Mina has the chance to react, he slips out of the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts and a ginger Maine Coon curled up on the bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For the next three days, Mina sleeps. Her body simply crashes, craving the restorative power of good deep sleep and she is not fighting in, accepting the urge to slumber, usually accompanied by AJ’s two cats, Ella and Louis, their warm fur and loud purring keeping nightmares at bay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the fourth day, Austin hands her a Chastain-branded VR set before going to the hospital.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This way you can be in the OR and witness my genius without Voss yelling at either of us,” he explains, looking weirdly happy with himself. Mina refrains from rolling her eyes but she appreciates what he hasn’t said: she hasn’t performed surgery in a proper OR in several months, she could use a refresher of good techniques that aren’t usually too useful when working in field conditions. And she has to admit: it’s good to have something to do again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Mina puts on the VR gear and the well-familiar surroundings of the OR number three comes to life seemingly around her, complete with the scrub nurses, mildly bored anaesthesiologist, and AJ’s deep, rumbling voice in her ear - Mina suddenly feels that she is home again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Observing the surgeries aside, Mina has too much free time on her hands in the following days and that only invites troublesome thoughts. She knows that she needs to deal with them - and that a conversation with Austin is necessary as well. But she doesn’t want to disturb the easy pace of their days; the way the two of them fit when they’re cooking, or when they do the Sunday crossword puzzle drinking coffee and bickering constantly. Mina spends three weeks in his apartment (when she mentions wanting to look for her own place, AJ points outside to the first raging blizzard of the season and offers to chauffeur her around in the spring. She accepts the unspoken invitation with a nod, and a smile). Neither of them starts the topic they’ve been dancing around for more than two years now as if speaking about it could chase away the comfortable ease of shared evenings. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“I’d say that I want to lock the two of them and not let out until they sort things out,” Voss tells Nic one day. “But I’m afraid the current state of affairs shows it would not help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re the most stubborn people on the planet. They’re perfect for each other. If only they could just talk about it to see it!”)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The thing is: Austin knows they should sit down and have a conversation about it. Any other normal two adults wouldn’t have a problem with just talking through the fact that they’ve been in a committed relationship for some time now, and perhaps they should address it. AJ should probably tell her that one day he’ll want to go on one knee and propose and that their wedding will be a small and casual affair with his family and their closest friends. Neither of them wants children, and Mina has already started transforming his apartment a little into a space fit for two with more of her personal accents, and a double coffee machine she ordered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They should sit down and talk about it but the thing is this - so much of their communication has always been non-verbal, he knows they don’t really need to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>AJ looks at Mina, her first day back to work and she’s preparing coffee to go in the kitchen while he feeds the cats, he looks at her and he knows how the rest of his life is going to be. There is warmth in her smile when Mina hands him the scarf he left on the hanger and his travel mug. He hands her the single crutch she’s still using on snowy days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their fingers tangle and somehow, that’s enough. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Writing this has been a challenge. Mostly because these two are the most headstrong, stubborn characters around and they just refused to cooperate. Eventually (especially closer to the end of the fic), I had to accept that their love story is not a damn Taylor Swift song and it doesn't matter how many times I've listened to the entire "folklore" album, they're a sad Tim Minchin song.<br/>Title taken from that song, by the way.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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